New measures of Texas Tech’s research activity during fiscal year 2010 put the university on track to qualify for the state’s newly created...

New measures of Texas Tech’s research activity during fiscal year 2010 put the university on track to qualify for the state’s newly created tier-one research fund, administrators told the system’s governing board Friday.

The university tallied more than $50 million in externally funded — or “restricted” — research enterprises last year, a number that could make it one of the first so-called emerging research schools to qualify for the half-billion dollar National Research University Fund.

Austin created the NRUF fund last year to goose the state’s research profile. Voter approval followed in November 2009.

Tech officials are optimistic the university could begin receiving its research funding within two years.

Unlocking the new funding stream has come to embody a tangible first step in the university’s aims to become a nationally recognized tier-one research institution in the next decade.

The ultimate goal, Tech President Guy Bailey said, is for Tech’s numbers to rival those of the 61 research powerhouses within the Association of American Universities.

“We’re doing some great things,” Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said. “It’s a great time to be in the Texas Tech system.”

Seven emerging research institutions across Texas are now vying for the new funding stream. To qualify, these schools must spend at least $45 million on restricted research for two consecutive years and meet four of an additional six standards, such as a $400 million endowment and annual awarding of at least 200 Ph.D.s.

Some of the other, less objective qualifications — particularly “high-quality” faculty and students — have yet to be concretely defined by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, though early predictions by Tech’s administration show the university on track to meet enough, if not all, of the benchmarks.

And the gap between Tech the other schools in pursuit of the funding widened in 2010.

Among the seven, Tech and the University of Houston were the only two in fiscal year 2010 to meet the $45 million restricted research requirement.

That research metric was the most challenging for Tech. It has served as the foundation of nearly all of the school’s recent strategic efforts.

So another year of numbers like Tech saw in 2010 should give the university access to NRUF as early as 2012 or 2013.

Lawmakers have yet to work out the details of how payouts will be divvied up among qualifying schools, but Hance has estimated it could infuse the school with as much as $13 million annually.

And, as Bailey told the board, research efforts are bearing fruit in several areas.

Overall research expenditures, for instance, have skyrocketed from about $53 million in 2008 to more than $126 million last fiscal year.

Ph.D.s awarded that year totaled 214. Also, more faculty are nabbing prestigious federal research grants.

Hance said these numbers underscore Tech’s current transformation as it sheds its reputation as a mostly instruction-focused school and gains more notoriety as a research hotbed.

“To change things at a large university, it’s like turning around a battleship,” he said. “Now we see the trends are in the right direction.”

Administrators in January will give regents a more definite prediction of whether Tech will reach NRUF. That’s when the coordinating board is scheduled to return to the issue.

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Other business conducted Friday by Tech board of regents•Approval of a $450,000 plan to design a new residence hall, which is slated for a plot near the intersection of 19th Street and Boston Avenue. Planners hope to have the building online by fall 2012.•Renewal of a contract with RH Strategies, a consulting firm that is helping Tech with its federal lobbying efforts. The contract extension reduced the monthly price of the contract from $31,000 to $20,000.•Extended a contract with Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations agency that is helping Tech gain more national media exposure. Tech will pay the company about $8,300 per month.•Accepted an 11-acre gift from Amarillo’s Harrington Regional Medical Center, which has donated land adjacent to the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center’s local campus.

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agreed ThreeDaughters. It's thrilling to see Bailey, Hance and the rest of the administration push for this. The alumni, local leaders, students and faculty should most definitely be applauded on their hard work and efforts towards making Tech one of the preeminent institutions in the state.